Just like a Vermeer
by Cheri de Poisson Impressionnan
Summary: Some days, Thalia can’t fight anymore. There isn’t enough balance there – Buddhism was never a really interesting religion, but what she find interesting usually eats her up, so what is there to say other than that?


Thalia can't get her act straight- she's the most prone to breaking the oath.

There isn't any need to trust her; she'll just twist the rules. Twist the rules all around.

Thalia's thoughts brushed around her skull, unable to be contained inside any longer. She hadn't meant to do this, and after all the broken promises that had crushed her, she had broken one that crumbled her most of all.

And she knows she let him have all the power, after all, she couldn't trust herself to have it.

She closes her eyes; there are painful, beautifully so, memories clouding her eyes.

_It was a cheapy Holiday Inn room, complete with cottage cheese like walls and a stained bed. His breath breathed down her neck, her shirt twisted around her frame. There weren't any barriers besides that of clothing. _

_He whispered, "This is illegal in most places." _

_Thalia just laughed, one of which belonged to someone who's seen cruel, horrible things and never really lived afterwards. _

_And they laid there on that bed, Thalia giving her power to him for just one day. Or what she considered a long, long day. But Thalia couldn't really pay attention to anything as unimportant as giving her power; no, she needed to concentrate on him, and look at the white finishing on the ceiling as a blessing. _

_White, such a pure colour. What irony!_

~.~.~.~

Just in the wake of dusk, she screams. Now at the Central park, the local crowd is eying her ruefully. Thalia holds her silver jacket tightly against her chest, muttering a prayer to Hades. She wants him to leave a special place in Tartarus, just for her.

Some days, Thalia can't fight anymore. There isn't enough balance there – Buddhism was never a really interesting religion, but what she find interesting usually eats her up, so what is there to say other than that?

There's water near the bridge and Thalia can't take it because even if she's not in it she's drowning. Drowning in herself but she can't stop and she should just end it and go off to a deep lake and end it but there isn't a chance that could happen because even if it's not the sea, even if the nymphs don't see her, Thalia can't go near the water. It burns her more than fire, its poison. There isn't a chance anyone can bring her near there without someone dying in the fire, its more deadly than if someone burned off a can of paint without warning someone because before it was just liquid but now it burns, it burns so bad.

And Thalia feels the water burn her as rain starts to pour, but she can't get out because as she's burning the fire gives her warmth and the drops shine like a Vermeer painting, and suddenly she's the Girl with the Pearl Earing and looking at a uniquely beautiful man paint her without seeing that she's on fire and it hurts, it hurts so bad, and even though she deserves it she can't help but cry with the flames.

~.~

Clever winks and smiles don't make up the rifts her heart feels. Her body is still soaked with pain; it never goes away even when there isn't a real reason. She often wonders how Lady Artemis is doing.

_Her eyes showed me what anger was. Ares was all talk; he isn't the real god of anger._

She was infamous among the circle of Hunters – she was the first in a long while that had ever broken her oath. They all expected her dead, wanted her to have this form of redemption.

_The Hunters looked at me like I was a joke – only the pretend Lieutenant. The real one would have died._

But what they didn't know was the man who she broke the oath with – they suspected Luke Castellan, the boy she had traveled with for so long.

_Luke was only a life source I never loved him, he never loved anyone, there was nothing I swear._

Still, Thalia remembers the bittersweet rendevous when he was out. But most of all, she remembers the day she ushered him out for good.

_I don't know how to love but I think I would love you the best if I could._

"I hate you, get out of my room_ boy," _Thalia tells him, trying to convince herself of the spiteful words.

"Thalia-" Percy starts.

"No, get out. You're not even sorry! Do me a favor and stay out of my way, punk." Thalia says, but the threat is empty. Secretly she hopes Percy can see this, but the hurt on Percy's face shows that he doesn't.

It hurts.

_No, I'm lying. I need you, please don't go you can't go_

He walks through the metaphorical door of her life, and the physical door of Thalia's hotel room. There was paint peeling from the walls, and through the cracks there was an original colour underneath. It was rough, damaged, though you could tell that the paint was once pretty. It reminded her of her life – it was once pretty, but then it started to peel. And no repainting could stop the peeling, so she would run to get more and more paint but it never stopped.

_Don't leave, don't leave; everyone leaves me don't go. Its like I can't think without hearing your questions; why did you leave? I can't breath and I can't see anymore. Please. _

~.~.~.

Thalia can't cry anymore. She doesn't have the effort and besides, would_ she _cry? Thalia, daughter of Zeus, crying? Ridiculous. Tell her the name and address of the person who said they saw them – she'd teach them what crying was.

She hasn't felt the burning in a while, and it seems that all is well and she can just move on. But then she sees her wall start to peel at the edges, right where a spider is. Thalia takes the spider and places it in her palm, and starts to peel away the baby blue lining of this hotel. There is dry wall, as dry as Thalia's heart, and she starts to breathe it in. She needs to peel it all away until its white again, until everything is a maligned wall of plastered angel wings.

And she starts to get dizzy, and she's not sure if its because the spider bit her or all the paint she's inhaled but it feels so calming, and even though she knew it should be scary she's really calm and _cool_ because she can feel herself faint and go to Los Angeles, right where she belongs.

The wall is finally white, and the owners decide they like the look enough not to repaint it.

~.~.~.

Thalia always detested funerals; good luck on her that this was her own funeral, therefore meaning that she didn't have to fake cry or any of that other stuff.

Luke Castellan, her suspected lover, takes the podium. He's not crying, just showing a stoic self that those who knew him knew was his way of controlling his emotions. He cleared his throat and spoke.

"I would consider her the person on the outside, kind of interacting, but never a real part. Everytime she tries, it bites back to her that she's really different. Why would she belong anyway? But what do I know? She died hating me," Luke pauses, for the gasps in the building are louder than his voice "She didn't love me. I'm Samuel Beckett while what she was looking for was just like Vermeer. Yeah, just exactly like a Vermeer work."

In the second row, Percy is weeping silently to himself. Thalia probably never even thought of me, he thought, she probably forgot the whole time we spent together and had a nice life until this incident.

Percy can't bring himself to say something after Luke does – his speech, though short was more eloquent than something he could ever come up with. He makes a mental note to look up what Vermeer means before he had a total mental breakdown.


End file.
